Winter Wonder-lessons!

January means penguins!

     We're buckling down to the heart of winter, and to relate our cold weather to the world around us, our class studied "polar animals" in January!

Notice the lack of the word, "Arctic"

     Now before I even started planning, I knew I had to make sure we (me, the kids, and the parents) all knew that our topic was the more general term of POLAR animals, as opposed to the more specific term "ARCTIC animals". Any time one searches or even thinks about animals that live in cold climates, penguins are going to be at or near the top of that list. However, what some might not realize is the fact that cold weather (i.e. Emperor) penguins only inhabit the SOUTH pole, or Antarctica. Therefore penguins cannot be classified as ARCTIC, or North Pole, animals.

Literally complete opposite sides of the Earth. 

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     With that technicality covered, I'd like to share some activities from our unit on Polar animals! We focused on polar bears, arctic hares and foxes, walruses, and penguins!

Handprint Polar Bears!

     These came out so adorable! We make white handprints on black construction paper (I drew the eyes, mouth, ears, and paws with a permanent marker after they were dry), then the kids cut the handprints out and glued them on gray paper. With the polar bears glued down, I used a big stamp to make the "p" and "b," then they wrote the letters to fill it in before they drew the snow around their polar bears.  I made this into a two day activity with day one being handprints and day two being cutting, gluing, and stamping/drawing.

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Arctic Hare and Fox Hop Game & Flip Sticks

     These went along with a game we played that is called "Arctic Fox & Hares Hop" which is just light "Red Light, Green Light". One person stands alone and is called the fox, and everyone else is a hare. The hares try to hop as far and quietly as they can  before the fox turns around!

     If the fox turns around and sees any hare still moving, then that hare must go back to the beginning and start over. The first hare to reach the fox and touch him/her becomes the fox and the game starts over with the new fox. We played the way where everyone gets at least one turn by saying if a hare reaches the fox and he/she has already had a turn being the fox, then the winning hare must choose a different hare (who hasn't had a turn being the fox) to be the new fox.

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     The flip sticks that we did illustrate a more academic aspect of these animals. Each side of the stick has the same picture, but one side is left white, while the other side is colored grey or brown or a mix. This shows how the animals have summer and winter coats that change color to help them blend in with the season.

Two different sticks to show the difference between each side.

     We colored one of each animal (and left the other white) and glued them onto popsicle sticks! That way students can quickly flip between the two different sides of each animal's stick.

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"P" Belly Penguins!

     

     I had so much fun with this activity! I love penguins and penguins things in the classroom so I saved the best for the last week! 

     We started with the belly. I simply drew the bubbles in the "P" design and wrote the word underneath. The students used q-tips and orange paint to dot each bubble and trace the letters to spell "penguin." When that dried, they cut out the belly, and glued it on the (already cut out) black penguin body. Then we attached the (already cut out) head, beak, eyes, feet and wings. The kids loved putting their wings in silly positions!

Our "colony"  :)

That's all for January!



Be safe & sweet, y'all!

Holiday DIYs!

Get ready for some serious crafting...

Here's what we got:

1. my December door decoration!
2. the parents' gifts (from the kiddos)
3. the kiddos' gifts (from me!)

     First off, I feel like I should share my door decoration with everyone because it's one I am proud of! Cute and simple and full of Christmas cheer.

"Jolly Holiday Helpers"

     Secondly, it's the "gift-is" that we made the last full week before our Winter break! 

It's like Christmas exploded in there.

     Made with crayon shavings from a wide pencil sharpener, clear plastic ornaments, and a hair dryer. They picked from red/green/yellow/white/silver shavings and I put the shavings inside the ornament, and rotated/shook the ornament as it was heating up from the hair dryer (holding it by the silver top hook thing. When all the pieces were stuck to the plastic (but before they got too melty and swirly) I took the off the heat and put them aside to cool. When cool, I write their names and the year on the bottom and tied a small jingle bell on the top with a white ribbon (instead of a ugly metal hook).

     It was easy! The most time consuming part was definitely the crayon shavings, only because with 12 ornaments, the sheer quantity of shavings was more than I was expecting when I started. I'd say it probably took about 1-2 tablespoons of shavings to fully cover the inside of one ornament and make it look nice and speckled.

Lastly is the gift from me to my kids! 

     When I give gifts as a teacher, I try to stay functional. This time I went with the reindeer candy canes, but also added Holiday pencils behind! Made with candy canes, pencils, paper hole protectors, red buttons, brown pipe cleaners, and hot glue. I made sure each reindeer had a different combination of pencils and different buttons, just to make sure there weren't any issues of matching or being upset about not matching.  These were also fairly painless to assemble and pretty quick from start to finish.

So those were my main examples of craftiness for December, can't wait to see what's in store for 2015!!

Be safe and sweet, y'all! (And Merry Christmas!!)